Free Republic

SACRAMENTO -- California's state budget has nearly doubled in the last decade, far outstripping the growth of population or the personal income of its citizens, a Californian analysis shows. Skyrocketing spending has also outpaced tax revenues, resulting in massive debt. It is certain to increase even further when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveils his budget proposal Monday, despite his efforts to cut expenditures. Driven by automatic spending increases and the failure to save boom-time revenue windfalls for a rainy day, the state's spending has climbed from $55.1 billion in the 1994-95 fiscal year to $105.4 billion this year. That is an...

SALT LAKE CITY - NASA (news - web sites) scientists said Friday they have recovered some critical pieces of the Genesis space capsule intact and are optimistic the wreckage will yield valuable information about the origins of the solar system. "We should be able to meet many, if not all, of our science goals," said physicist Roger C. Wiens of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The Genesis capsule spent 2 1/2 years gathering solar atoms, but crashed while returning to Earth on Wednesday, slamming into the ground at nearly 200 mph after its parachutes failed to open. It cracked open...